How
Would Elvis Vote?

Polls
indicate Bush ainīt nothinī but a hound dog

Elvis
Presley did not have a political bone in his body. During
the turbulent 1960s, he was, not unlike George W. Bush, completely
detached from reality.

He hung out on
Hollywood film sets and in Las Vegas, was protected by an
inner circle of incurious goons, and dabbled in astrology,
painkillers, speed, fast cars, Lear jets and expensive peanut
butter sandwiches.

Elvis
was the redneck in the bubble -- hippies, race riots, LSD,
pop festivals may as well have been happening on Mars. The
most overt political act Elvis ever made was to show up
at the White House, stoned out of his gourd on a cocktail
of prescriptions drugs. He was there to get an honorary
drug marshal's certificate from Pres. Nixon, who cluelessly
felt that being seen with the King would somehow endear
him to "the young people."

The
ensuing grip-and-grimace photograph is now the most popular
object in the entire National Archives, more often requested
(and put on display) than the Louisiana Purchase, the Articles
of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, the Bill of Rights.
That, somehow, tells us something about America, though
I'm not sure what.

One
question it does raise, and it's not an unimportant one,
is How Would Elvis Vote?

In
short, how would a barely literate white Mississippi truck
driver vote in this election? How would Florida Panhandle
construction workers vote in this election? How would former
factory workers in New England and the Midwest vote, their
jobs having been shipped overseas? In a society where the
facts were as readily available as handguns, assault weapons,
beers, cigarettes, televisions, cell phones, and any other
items by which we regularly sate, dull and detach ourselves
from reality, the answer would be easy: against Bush, for
Kerry.

The
Latter-Day Elvises above may not love the senator from Massachusetts
but I'll wager that those who still have jobs don't love
their bosses either. In fact, those who have jobs are made
to feel that they should be grateful for the crumbs tossed
at them. If they don't like it, they can go live in some
other country. Or they can, as one of Bush's campaign officials
suggested, "take Prozac."

Or,
as the Chamber of Commerce president said, "stop whining."
But we live in a society that does not value people. It
values consumers. It does not value constructive criticism.
It values passive acceptance. It does not value informed
dialogue and spirited debate. It values expletive-laced
threats and innuendos about one's loyalty and patriotism.

Thus,
we have these surrealistic poll results in the last week
that say Bush is ahead of Kerry (Gallup and Times/ CBS have
him ahead; Pew and Harris have it tied). The Times/CBS poll
was "based on 1,088 registered voters." Who are these voters?
Why did they answer their phones? Were they the first 1,088
Americans who answered? Was there any attempt to distribute
the responses by race, income level, gender, party affiliation?
How were the questions asked? Could it be that these 1,088
Americans are part of the vast right-wing conspiracy that
does not own cell phones? In short, pay no mind to polls.

The
Latter-Day Elvises have never been contacted by political
pollsters, nor have the young, the unemployed, the poverty-stricken,
the Hispanic, the homeless, the incarcerated, the rehabilitated,
the people working two jobs in order to pay their bills,
the soldiers under fire in Iraq, the wounded back home.

Jimmy
Breslin, the ancient Newsday columnist, let the corporate
media's cat out of the bag in a recent column. He cited
the statistic pollsters most dread: 168,900,019 cell
phones are now in use in America. Breslin writes, "There
is no way to poll cell phone users, so it isn't done."

He
also points out that, "there are 40 million between the
ages of 18 and 29, one in five eligible voters ... Common
sense would say that the majority of the 18 to 25 who do
vote would vote for the Democrat.

The
people who say they want to vote for Bush are generally
in the older age brackets, and they don't have as much trouble
with the lies told by Bush and his people. The older people
also use cell phones much less because they can't hear on
the things and when trying to dial a number on these increasingly
tiny instruments they stand there for an hour and get nothing
done."

The
Latter Day Elvises will come around. Deep down they know
Bush ain't nothin' but a hound dog, and he's been stepping
on their red, white and blue suede shoes since January 2001.